No Man's Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

name sound as if he were close blood kin to Satan.
    Oh, Lord! Bamber had not given any hint about people being in residence. Had
he forgotten?
All the signs had been punching Ferdinand in the nose like a giant fist for the past half hour, but idiot that he was, he had recognized not a one of them. The house was
occupied
. And of all people, by the woman he had kissed last night. Possibly by her husband too. He had a pained mental image of pistols at dawn, grass for breakfast.
    She had stepped down onto the tiled floor and was hurrying toward him, her right arm extended in greeting. She was smiling. And devil take it, but she was beautiful. He licked lips suddenly turned dry. There was no sign of a husband thundering down the stairs behind her.
    “You!” she exclaimed. Then she seemed to hear the echo of what her butler had said to her and her smile faltered.
“Lord
Ferdinand Dudley?”
    He took her outstretched hand in his and bowed over it, clicking his heels as he did so. “Ma'am,” he murmured.
Bloody hell
, he added silently.
    “I supposed that you had continued your journey this morning,” she said. “I expected never to see you again.Do you have far to go? But how delightful that you have called on me first. Someone told you where I live? Do come up to the drawing room. Mr. Jarvey will have refreshments sent up. I was on my way out for a walk, but I am so glad you came before I left.”
    Where I live
. His mind latched on to those three words. She
did
live here. She thought he had come to call on her on the strength of yesterday's acquaintance. Lord, what rotten bad luck. He dredged up a smile from somewhere deep inside himself, bowed again, and offered his arm.
    “It would be my pleasure, ma'am,” he said, instead of simply telling her what was what and having done with it.
    This would teach him to avoid village fêtes and pretty country lasses, Ferdinand thought as she took his arm and led him toward the staircase. He tried to stuff aside the memory of her dancing with gay animation about the maypole on the village green, her face vibrant and beautiful in the firelight, her thick hair bouncing and swaying against her back below its confining ribbon. And of the kiss he had incautiously maneuvered, during which he had held her very shapely body flush against his own.
    Devil take it!

3

    H e had come! He was tall and lithe and elegant in crisply clean riding clothes different from yesterday's. He was smiling and handsome, and he was
Lord
Ferdinand Dudley. She remembered how the arm through which her own was now loosely linked had felt holding her close the night before. She remembered how his mouth had felt on her own.
    He had come!
    It was absurd, as well as undesirable, to imagine that he had come courting. He was merely a stranger passing through, who had danced with her and kissed her, discovered her identity, and come to pay a courtesy call. No, more than that, surely. He must have felt the sheer romance of the maypole dance and its aftermath, as she had. He had come to see her once more before riding on.
    He had come!
    Viola led Lord Ferdinand Dudley into the drawing room and indicated a chair beside the marble fireplace. She took one opposite him and smiled at him again.
    “How did you discover my identity?” she asked. It warmed her to know that he had made the effort.
    He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. How gratifying that she could discompose a
lord
. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
    “I asked the landlord of the Boar's Head for the direction to Pinewood Manor,” he said.
    Ah, so he had known yesterday who she was? She had not known his identity or sought to discover it. But she was glad he had come to introduce himself before riding on. She was glad their encounter yesterday had meant something to him, as it had to her.
    “The fête was a great success,” she said. She wanted him to talk about it, to mention their lovely dance.
    “Quite so.” He cleared his throat again and